Elbow bakery in New York City

One of my new favorite bakeries

The bakery game in New York seems to have reached the peak of excellence. I remember going to places like L’Imprimerie, Ciao, Gloria, and Winner in Brooklyn, and try to go to them when in town, and I’ve also had great pastries at Frenchette bakery in past visits. But on this trip, two that stood out were Hani’s, where I went with Casey Elsass, and Elbow, where I went this morning with deb perelman. And both places were really a treat.

At Hani’s Bakery

I’m staying closed to Hani’s and walked by, but never went in. There are lots of excellent bakeries in the East Village, such as La Cabra, Librae, Mary’s Soda Bread Shop, and a brand-new branch of the excellent Win Son bakery, but had not heard of Hani’s, so was glad that Casey suggested we meet up there. I loved the pastries at Hani’s, and if I had to pick my favorite of the six we tried, I’d choose all of them.

The cinnamon bun, which have become ubiquitious, stood out from all the others. I wasn’t keen on ordering one, but was glad we did. It was incredibly light and I know we all hate this word, so sorry about using it, but it was redolent with cinnamon. They source it from Burlap & Barrel and normally people don’t pay attention to cinnamon, but here, it really stands out.

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Pastry chef/owner Miro Uskokovi makes a multi-layered carrot cake that’s probably inspired by his Serbian roots (there are several multi-layered cakes in their cake canon), but the Valrhona Chocolate Fudgiest Brownie was truly the fudgiest brownie I’ve ever had and that was the one I kept digging my fork into over and over again. The other star of the show here is the Pistachio-Halvah Rice Krispies Treat is, as Lisa Donovan in the NYT described it, transcendent. (If you can’t make it to the bakery, here’s the recipe)

I’m been furiously packing to head back to Paris tomrrow, seeing my last few friends—no, I don’t have only a few friends left, but there are a few friends here that I want to see before I go. And I’m not a good packer. I didn’t think I was going to bring too much stuff back to Paris, but Rachel Simons brought several blocks of her Seed+Mill halvah when I had her as a guest on my podcast, that I’m bringing them home, as well as some cookbooks I’ve had my eye on, as well as some of my own books, to bring back for a book event in Paris in June.

But this morning Deb of Smitten Kitchen and I took a walk to Elbow bakery, where I was deeply impressed by everything. I think their official name is Elbow Bread, but it was mostly Zöe Kanan’s pastries that we were after. Although she blurs the line between bread and pastry, and that’s fine with me. I like them both, and I also liked meeting Zöe, who came out to talk to us, and also took us through the kitchen at the end of our visit, to meet the bakers.

However…as soon as I’d walked in the door, I honed in on the bialys, and Zöe was wearing a baseball cap that proudly said BIALYS across it, which made it seem like the right thing to order first. Deb wanted to go with the onion bialy, but I was focused on the garlic bread bialy, likely inspired by Italian-American garlic bread.

People in France don’t eat much raw garlic, and even Marcella Hazan complained Americans put too much of it in food, but I like it, so I overrode Deb and ordered one of those. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t mansplaining. And she didn’t mind; she’s usually the one ‘splaing to me.)

Behind it still in the bag is the schmaltz and scallion pocket, which was a pull-apart knot of bread, which Eater mentioned was inspired by Ratner’s, a neighborhood restaurant that closed twenty years ago. It’s great that Zöe is carrying on the traditions of the Lower East Side neighborhood they’re in, with her pastries and breads, which were perfect for someone like me, who doesn’t mind a little savory with his sweets.

The challah honey bun was laminated, which gives it all those beautiful flaky layers, and was a nod to the neighbor’s Jewish roots. Deb was the one that chose that, and it was a good choice. (I think we’re a good pair…at least when it comes to ordering and eating pastries.)

Also because of the neighborhood…pretzels! Boy, do I love a good pretzel. Unfortunately the carts that sell them nowadays in New York are doing a disservice to the freshly baked pretzels that I remember growing up. (Or maybe my memory is wrong and the pretzels from those days of yore were just rewarmed industrial pretzels, like they sell now?) But these freshly-baked pretzels are going on regular rotation for future visits to New York served with spicy brown mustard on the side.

Zöe makes her pretzels with a little sweet potato puree in the dough, which gives is an extra-golden color when you tear into it. Writing about it now, I realize that should have gotten one for the plane tomorrow.

Elbow bakery also offers other kinds of pretzels, which change frequently. Today they had ones dusted in cinnamon sugar.

Another multicultural pastry here are Kolache, which Wikipedia tells me are of Slavic and Czech origin, but my introduction to them was in Texas, which was where Zöe learned to make them. The ones she was making today were filled with Meyer lemon custard and blueberries, surrounded by a cornbread streusel. I was starting to get full, but managed a few bites of the kolache, which (sorry to say, Texans) was the best I’ve had.

While I wasn’t considering getting a sandwich, the two women next to us at the counter, who were also doing their own pastry and bread tasting (hi Phoebe and Jamie!), offered me a bite of their Date-nut-bread sandwich. I lopped off a piece, because I didn’t want to bite into it. Made with freshly ground walnut butter, with extra-crunchy with feuilletine mixed in, along with a schmear of Ben’s cream cheese, and Medjool dates on dark sourdough sandwich bread, it was a game-changing sandwich. When I cut off a piece, it wasn’t photo-friendly, and my fingers were rather sticky, so I didn’t get a nice picture of it, but you can see it in the photo at the top of the post.

When I told them I was leaving New York tomorrow, the women next to us suggested that I stop by tomorrow morning on the way to the airport to get one of the sandwiches for the plane, which sounded like a good idea—along with a pretzel, and probably a few other treats. But if I don’t get back there tomorrow, I’d say we did a pretty good job today…